Top of the lottery prospects: Connor Bedard

Feb 1, 2023 - 2:00 PM

In the three games since we last checked in on Connor Bedard all he’s done is continue to score — putting up six goals and an assist while taking 21 shots.

In the Regina Pats last contest — a 6-4 loss to the Medicine Hat Tigers — he scored a hat trick for his 13th multi-goal game this season (in the 34 WHL games he’s played). Of those 13, he has eight two-goal games, four hat tricks and one four-goal explosion (in his first game back from The World Juniors).

He continues to lead the WHL in goals (42) and points (85), even though he missed 11 games while representing Canada in the WJC. He’s currently 19 points clear of the next highest scorer — Zach Benson of the Winnipeg Ice — even though Benson has played in seven more games (Benson is also a consensus top-15 pick in this year’s draft).

Bedard has scored 170 points — including 83 goals — in his last 76 games. He’s currently on a 33-game scoring streak — and the last WHL game in which he was held scoreless was the very first game of the season. There is no proper way to contextualize the numbers he’s putting up as a 17 year-old kid.

Corey Pronman at The Athletic dropped a midseason draft rankings update today. Not only does he have Bedard all alone at the top of his draft board (as the only skater in the Projected Elite NHL Player tier), but this is what he had to say about him:

Adding him to the Chicago Blackhawks next season would not only change the entire trajectory of the franchise, but it could single-handedly speed up the rebuild process by a matter of years.